


just call this what it is (we don't pretend it's real)

by flightlessbirdss



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Crack, F/M, Pre-Relationship, TenMinghua Week, They get trapped in a cave, that's literally it - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:47:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28344141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightlessbirdss/pseuds/flightlessbirdss
Summary: Tenzin was proud enough to admit, that this was not, in fact, an ideal situation.Did he want to be here, trapped in a cave with no one else but Red Lotus member, Ming Hua, present? Absolutely not.But somehow, this was how his life had deteriorated.
Relationships: Bolin & Ghazan (Avatar), Ming-Hua/Tenzin (Avatar)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	just call this what it is (we don't pretend it's real)

**Author's Note:**

> this is so dumb but happy last day of tenminghua week

Tenzin was proud enough to admit, that this was not, in fact, an ideal situation.

Did he want to be here, trapped in a cave with no one else but Red Lotus member, Ming Hua, present? Absolutely not. 

But somehow, this was how his life had deteriorated.

Only moments ago, they had been fighting-- him and his friends, against the Red Lotus.

He and Ming Hua had been fighting one on one, her waterbending skills surpassing anyone he’s fought against before. He’d started to panic as their fight brought them further and further from where the rest of the group was when suddenly, and he means suddenly because he genuinely has no idea of how the physics of this happened, a ton of rocks just fell. Literally fell. Blocking off the only exit either of them could have used. 

In a shared moment of both shock, they both stopped bending, only to stare at the closed off entrance.

Complete silence, mouths wide open.

Tenzin blinked. Then blinked again. As if by the time he opened his eyes again, the rocks would magically disappear. 

“They’re not going to leave you know,” said Ming Hua suddenly into the silence.

He only gaped at her.

“The rocks. They’re not going to move. They are rocks.”

Tenzin said nothing.

“You know what a rock is, right? They’re generally considered to be heavy, they come from the earth…”

Tenzin, at this point, was not staying silent out of his principles of not engaging with criminals, but rather the sheer incredulity of the situation.

She let out a deep sigh, “Could really use a fucking earthbender right now, huh?”

“I….. suppose,” he managed.

“I don’t think you can… airbend the rocks away,” she tried.

Tenzin tried. It did not work. “There’s too many,” he said. “It’s too heavy.”

“I thought so,” Ming Hua said. “My waterbending wouldn’t work either.”

Silence fell between them once again. It was… awkward, but also not.

It was better, he supposed, than them fighting once again, It would probably end pretty badly. The cave wasn’t very big, walls surrounding them narrow enough to limit fighting options. The most offending wall, the gigantic pile of rocks, completely unmoving, except for the occasional settlement of the rubble. He wasn’t quite sure, how he was stupid enough to be backed into a corner of a literal fucking cave. A cave. He didn’t even k+now there were caves nearby, the fight itself was in the middle of nowhere. Nowhere. And now, even worse, he was in a cave. A cave.

A fucking _cave_. He didn’t know what else to say.

He wasn’t even sure when they would leave, if they would leave.

Neither his airbending or her waterbending could work as a way of escape, and it wasn’t like the rocks were going to move, as Ming Hua so eloquently stated, so… what now.

Was he going to die here? Trapped, in a cave, with a Red Lotus member, known for her violence?

If he died, what would happen then to his family? His children?

What an end, for his life?

Trapped, in a cave?

In a cave.

A _cave_.

Fuck.

In a moment of pure defeat, he sagged onto the floor, buried his head into his hands.

“A cave…” he muttered out loud. “A fucking _cave_ ……”

Ming Hua, let out a laugh, of all things, a subtle laugh-- barely even a chuckle but it was a _laugh_ , Ming Hua was _laughing_ at his plight. 

Though, he supposed, it was their shared plight,

How odd, he thought, to be sharing anything with her, aside from mutual hatred.

“A cave,” she repeated. “It is very unfortunate.”

She sat down too, not next to him but not absurdly far, either.

“It almost reminds me of the volcano,” she said mildly. “You know, the one I was trapped in for thirteen fucking years. Constantly dehydrated. Overheated. Deprived of my most basic human need of water.”

“You did,” he pointed out, “try to kidnap Korra. As a child. You tried to kidnap a child.”

“And you have never done anything wrong?”

“No,” he said, “but I never tried to kidnap a child.”

“And?”

He could see her point, somewhat. It was something, rather difficult to think about, the circumstances at which the Red Lotus had been trapped for so many years, it was almost inhuman. Enough to drive anyone insane, even, especially if they were already attempting things, such as kidnapping children. That being said, he cared about Korra more than many things in the world, and as a parent, the thought of anyone kidnapping a child was so horrific to him-- any form of sympathy was hard. It was hard for him, to feel bad, after what she had done to kidnap Korra, or the amount of murders she committed, or her and her friends inability to leave Korra or society alone. That being said, Tenzin understood enough about humanity to know that the treatment in those prisons were inhumane. It was complicated, he understood, because of how powerful she was as benders. But, he also knew that those prisons were not the solution.

“KIdnapping is bad,” he said, because he felt it important to emphasize, but also, “But that shouldn’t have happened to you, the conditions were wrong.”

“Wow,” she said. “Didn’t think you would say that, with all your morals.”

“Morals are… important. You know that right.”

“I have morals,” she said. “Mine just don’t necessarily agree with yours.”

“Because yours validates kidnapping a child. And killing people.”

“Yes, exactly!”

Silence fell over them, once again. The time dragged on, neither side really wanting to say anything. The only acknowledgement that time passed, was the light slipping in through the cracks of the rocks, slowly starting to dim.

It was an almost comfortable companionship, he realized alarmingly.

It was Tenzin who interrupted it, maybe he felt the need to, the longer he spent feeling anything close to comfort in her presence, the more wrong it felt. He wanted to fight, to argue with her. Here he was, trapped with someone who had done so many awful things, even to people he cared deeply about-- he wanted the anger back, the disgust, he wanted her to say something so objectively wrong it would be easy to condemn her. He wanted to fight her, not here in this tiny cave, that would just be idiotic-- but outside, with the entire sea and the open air at their defense. He wanted to fight, he wanted to win, he wanted for her and the Red Lotus to go to jail and for this whole ordeal to be over, and then everything would be as it was meant to be. 

He didn’t want to think about what jail truly meant for her, the conditions she’d be trapped in once again.

Thirteen years…

So, he said, “Why do you… fight for what you do?”

Ming Hua let out something close to an incredulous laugh, “ _What_?”

“I just mean… why go through all of this? What’s the point?”

Ming Hua’s eyes flashed briefly, with something close to anger. “Beliefs,” she said. “What else? Besides, it’s fun.”

“Fun,” Tenzin repeated distatesfully. 

“Better than rotting in a volcano,” she said.

“You’re hurting people,” he said.

“I was hurt enough. Besides, I _believe_ in it. Zaheer especially does.” She crinkled her nose, “it’s a little annoying.” 

Then, she turned to him. “What do you believe in?”

Tenzin paused at that. “I believe in doing good,” he said. “You know, not killing people.”

“You’re very fixated on that,” she commented.

Tenzin’s eye twitched.

“I’ll admit,” she said. “Maybe… not my finest moment, doing that, but it happened. Can I change that?” 

She didn’t give him a chance to continue before she said, “No, I can’t. So isn’t it time we all move on?”

“I don’t think that’s how it works.” 

“I don’t care.” 

Tenzin couldn’t really argue with that.

Silence, once again. 

The light dimmed further. Tenzin knew logically that what they really needed was an earthbender, but at the moment he would settle for a firebender. He really would. 

Why, of all people, to be trapped in a cave, an airbender and a waterbender. Really what were the chances, why _them_.

To be honest it was partially his fault, both of theirs really. He’d been so caught up in the fight, so determined to win, he hadn’t even noticed how they’d made their way into the cave, not until the rocks started falling. 

He didn’t think she knew either, for all of her questionable methods, he didn’t really think she’d purposefully trap them in a cave, it’s not like it benefited her either. 

Maybe if there was, like, a river in the cave, he’d believe it.

But no. It was just a dumb mistake, and now, they were both trapped. Soon to be in the dark too, oh Spirits this was awful. 

He buried his head in his hands, he could feel himself spiraling but he felt he had the right to when he was about to _die in a fucking cave why_ —

“What’s your favorite color?”

He looked up, almost thinking he’d imagined it, but no, Ming Hua, _Ming Hua_ , had just asked him his favorite color. 

He looked at her, he tried to glare but mostly he probably just looked confused. 

“What, it’s a simple question. Mine is blue by the way, obviously.”

He thought over the question briefly, and came to the awful conclusion that he simply didn’t know. 

He thought about it a little more, and then said “blue,” you know like the color of his tattoos. 

“That’s so weird,” Ming Hua said, “because I literally just said that.”

“What, we can’t have the same favorite color?”

“No,” she said. “I claimed it.”

“Wh…” he spluttered, absurdly angry at this petty conversation “You can’t just claim a color.”

“Just did. Pick a different one.”

“No,” he said, because this was apparently the hill he was dying on. 

He never even thought about his favorite color before, but now that he did he knew it was blue. He wasn’t picking a different one, fuck that. What, just because she was a waterbender she got to claim it? 

Ridiculous. Absurd. Disgusting. 

If he wanted his favorite color to be blue then it would be, and he was like… part waterbender anyway, at least his mother was, he had every right to the color. 

He was about to tell her as such, in a long angry rant, when he realized that she was laughing. _Laughin_ g. Again. 

Distantly, he thought he kinda liked the sound of it. 

Wow, he was definitely not addressing that. 

“You know what,” she said. “If you care so much you can have it.”

“We can….. share it,” he said. “Because you can’t claim colors.”

“I still think you can.”

“You know what I think we’re done with the color conversation,” he said. 

“Well, what else would you like to talk about?”

He… didn’t know exactly what he did want to talk about, but somehow he found that he didn’t want the conversation to end. He wanted to… talk to her. 

“Wonder how the others are doing,” he commented, mostly in an attempt at finding something mutual to talk about. 

“Hm,” said Ming Hua. “Hopefully the Red Lotus won the fight.”

—

The thing was, no one won that fight. Mostly, it was a truce, though debatedly it could be said that the Krew ended with the upper hand, if only because the Red Lotus did lose 25% of their members in the battle, and it was a while before they noticed. 

It wasn’t until Bolin and Ghazan were having a quite frankly awesome stand off, when Bolin stopped to say “Wait guys, where’s Tenzin?”

Korra, from her position, about to wreck Zaheer stopped too— “Wait you’re right Bolin where is he?”

Ghazan, who was about to try to drop a bunch of rocks on Bolin’s head, thankfully didn’t do that, and instead stopped too, saying, “Where’s Ming Hua?”

P’Li commented, “Weren’t they fighting eachother?”

“I think they were,” Mako said thoughtfully, probably utilizing his detective skills. 

“Okay but then where’d they go?” asked Asami. She was out of fighting position too. 

“I don’t know,” Zaheer commented. “Maybe they got trapped somewhere?”

“That’s the dumbest idea ever,” said Korra. “They’re both competent benders, how would they get _trapped_.”

“Maybe they died,” P’Li said. Everyone glared at her. “ _What_ ,” she defended. “It’s what Ming Hua would say.”

“Ming Hua isn’t here,” Zaheer said. 

“Yeah probably because she’s dead.”

“Or trapped!” added Korra. 

“Tenzin wouldn’t kill her,” Bolin said. 

“Yeah, she would kill him though,” said Ghazan. 

“So… it’s Tenzin who’s probably dead?” Bolin concluded, tears starting to well in his eyes. 

Ghazan shifted uncomfortably, “Well I didn't mean—“ he tried to amend. 

“Tenzin’s fine,” Mako said. “So is Ming Hua—“

“No electrocution this time around?” asked Ghazan. 

Mako opened his mouth, then closed it. 

“Guys,” said Korra loudly. “We like… have to do something, right?”

“I mean do we _have_ to—“ Zaheer started. 

“I’ll look for them!” Bolin offered. 

Ghazan nodded, “I'll join.”

Mako’s eye twitched, but he didn’t say anything. 

“That’s a good idea,” Korra said, already turning back to fight. “You guys go, we'll finish up.”

Bolin turned to Ghazan “You ready?” he asked. The area they were in was very rocky, surrounded by cliffs so having two earthbenders was probably a good idea.

Ghazan nodded, and off they went. 

Bolin probably should have found this more weird than he did, but honestly he didn’t mind Ghazan, and the weird solidarity they had as they looked for the missing members was kinda nice. 

They ended up splitting up as it got dark out, which maybe wasn’t the best idea, but they were kinda running out of time. 

Bolin’s method was mostly just moving the earth around anywhere he figured was big enough to be trapped in, and when he ended up coming across a conveniently large pile of rocks, he figured he should check there. 

Honestly, while it sucked that Tenzin was missing, he had a pretty good time just moving rocks around for the search party, definitely more calming than fighting the Red Lotus. He figured it would be nice if people on either team went missing more often, if only for that brief truce. 

The rocks actually ended up opening to a cave, and he almost didn’t want to finish

moving the rocks, because he found it a little hard to believe that they could manage to get trapped there, Tenzin was smarter than that, but he swore he heard voices coming from within the cave. 

And not like, angry voices or fighting noises like he would expect from Tenzin and Ming Hua interacting, but soft voices like a normal conversation and, occasionally, a laugh. 

So he ended up moving the rest of the rocks and saw, absurdly, Tenzin and Ming Hua, sitting closish to each other kinda like friends, talking. Just talking. Huh. 

A moment later, Ghazan appeared, having carved out a path through the back wall of the cave, which apparently wasn’t very wide. 

In a single moment, all four of them froze, and honestly Bolin didn’t know what to say, which was a first. 

Ghazan said, “Um, everything good?” 

And then Ming Hua got up— she was very close to Tenzin, and walked over to Ghazan. 

“We’re great,” she announced. 

Bolin thought that Tenzin looked almost disappointed as he walked over to Bolin. 

“Bye Ghazan!” Bolin announced, as he watched the other half of the Red Lotus leave. Ghazan waved back, and then it was just him and Tenzin in the cave. 

“So,” Bolin said. “You were… trapped in a cave?”

Korra would never believe it, Bolin could hardly believe it himself. 

Tenzin nodded. “It was… yeah.”

Bolin shrugged, he didn’t really feel like pressing. “Cool, learn anything we can use to take down the Red Lotus or something?”

Tenzin paused, before saying, “Ming Hua’s favorite color is blue.”

Bolin didn’t think that was particularly helpful in taking down the organization, but he just said, “Yeah, I kinda figured.”

He filled Tenzin in on everything about the fight that happened while he was gone, which really wasn’t a lot, and maybe it was because he had just been trapped in a cave for a couple hours with no way out and also with a Red Lotus member, but he thought there was something different about Tenzin. 

It was subtle, but it was only because Bolin saw Tenzin and Ming Hua for that brief moment in that cave— free from animosity, that Bolin even noticed, but Tenzin definitely acted differently whenever Ming Hua was mentioned. 

Bolin took the liberty of not mentioning it to Korra. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
